From the Cradle Cover Revealed

From the Cradle Cover Revealed

We are excited to reveal the cover of our next novel together, From the Cradle, which will be published worldwide on October 7th by Thomas & Mercer, part of Amazon Publishing. Click on the image to your left to see it larger.

From the Cradle is about children who have gone missing, and we wanted the cover to get that concept across at a glance. We all have images of the parents of abducted children clinging to their left-behind toys. My (Mark’s) own daughter had for the first few years of her life a small pink rabbit, imaginatively named Pink Bunny, that she was inseparable from. (I lost it twice, but that’s another story.) My son has a blue teddy that he won’t sleep without. So when our editor at Amazon sent over the initial designs for the cover, my first thought was that it was too sad, too distressing. I’m the kind of person who cries at Toy Story 3 because I can’t bear the thought of loyal toys being abandoned.

The bunny on this cover is even sadder, because he (I can’t help but think of the rabbit as male) hasn’t been left behind by a forgetful child; that child has been taken, the much-loved comforter tossed aside… So yes, it’s sad, but it’s an image that should squeeze a parent’s heart, make them experience that butterfly-flap of anxiety in their gut. This cover tells you to fear the worst, and that’s exactly why we like it.

From the Cradle is the first in what we hope will grow into a new series – our first police procedural, but with strong elements of psychological thriller – featuring Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon, who works for one of the Metropolitan Police’s MITs (Murder Investigations Team) in south-west London.

Here’s the blurb to From the Cradle:

The first child was taken from her house.

The second from his mother’s car.

The third from her own bedroom…

When Helen and Sean Phillips go out for the evening, leaving their teenage daughter babysitting little Frankie, they have no idea that they are about to face every parent’s greatest fear.

Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon is hopeful that the three children who have been abducted in this patch of south-west London will be returned safe and well. But when a body is found in a local park, Lennon realizes that time is running out – and that nothing in this case is as it seems…

Blending police procedural and psychological thriller, FROM THE CRADLE will have every parent checking that their children are safe in their beds…then checking again.

4 Comments

Really enjoyed this book. Can’t wait for the next one to see what happens In Lennon’s personal life. Read Because She Loves me and now going to read The Magpies. Read the last two over three days and even missed my favourite Soap in order to finish. Going to read all the books by both authors.